The Earth will get another close shave Monday, when the 152 metre asteroid 2003 DZ15 makes a pass by our fair planet on the night of July 29th/30th at 3.5 million kilometres distant. This is over 9 times the Earth-Moon distance and poses no threat to our world.

This is much smaller than 2.75 kilometre 1998 QE2, which sailed by (bad pun intended) our fair world at 5.8 million kilometres distant on May 31st, 2013. The Virtual Telescope Project will be presenting a free online event to monitor the passage of NEA 2003 DZ15 starting Monday night July 29th at 22:00 UT/6:00 PM EDT.

An Apollo asteroid, 2003 DZ15 was confirmed by the Lowell Observatory and NEAT's Mount Palomar telescope upon discovery in February 2003. This is its closest approach to the Earth for this century, although it will make a pass nearly as close to the Earth in 2057 on February 12th.

A newfound asteroid about the size of a football field will cruise past Earth tonight (July 22), and you can follow all the action live online.

The near-Earth asteroid 2013 NE19, estimated to be between 194 feet and 426 feet wide (59 to 130 meters), will pass within 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) of Earth tonight - about 11 times the distance between our planet and the moon. There is no danger that it will strike Earth on this pass, scientists say.

The online Slooh Space Camera will webcast live views of 2013 NE19's close approach as seen from an observatory in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa. You can watch the asteroid webcast live here on SPACE.com at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT Tuesday), courtesy of Slooh.

Asteroid 2013 NE19, which was discovered just last Monday (July 15), will be quite faint, making it a difficult target for backyard observers. But it should be readily visible in Slooh's remote-controlled telescope, the group said.

"Slooh's imaging technology and high-altitude location in the Canary Islands are well suited for a tricky object like this, which may be impossible for garden-variety setups to capture," Slooh CEO Michael Paolucci said in a statement.

July 20th is a red letter date in space history. Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon, took place on this day in 1969. Viking 1 also made the first successful landing on Mars, seven years later to the day in 1976.

A remarkable astronomical event also occurred over the northeastern United States 153 years ago today on the night of July 20th, known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1860. And with it came a mystery of poetry, art and astronomy that was only recently solved in 2010.

A meteor procession occurs when an incoming meteor breaks up upon reentry into our atmosphere at an oblique angle. The result can be a spectacular display, leaving a brilliant glowing train in its wake. Unlike early morning meteors that are more frequent and run into the Earth head-on as it plows along in its orbit, evening meteors are rarer and have to approach the Earth from behind. In contrast, these often leave slow and stately trains as they move across the evening sky, struggling to keep up with the Earth.

160,000 servicemen, 1000 tanks, 130 planes and 70 ships are taking part in Russia's biggest military drill since Soviet times. The war games will continue in the country's Far East until July 20.

The maneuvers are the latest in series of surprise military checks which performed by Russia, in an effort to reveal and oust flaws in the country's defense program.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu received an order to test the battle readiness of the Eastern command, which unites military forces in the Far East and Trans-Baikal. The request was received from President Vladimir Putin at 01:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Saturday, July 13.

Following the order, 160,000 servicemen were put on high alert and began advancing toward the training sites.

According to the Defense Ministry, around 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 planes and helicopters, and 70 ships are taking part in the war games.

Military commanders in the Far East and Trans-Baikal learned of the drill's details only after it had begun, receiving a secret parcel from Defense Minister Shoygu.

"The main purpose of the activities is to check the readiness of the military units to perform assigned tasks and evaluate of the level of personnel's training and technical preparation as well as the level of equipment of units with arms and military equipment," the defense ministry said in statement.

The statement noted that the drill would require some units to travel more than 3,000 kilometers from their usual deployment sites. Seven hundred flat wagons and 50 railway cars were assigned to perform the transfer.

The ground forces have been given two days to reach their destination. They have been tasked with pitching field camps, masking their positions, and organizing defense strategies upon arrival.

The sight of a giant shooting star left a North Taranaki man shaking after his early morning run.

Lance Howarth, a mobile mechanic, was out running around the back roads of Lepperton this morning when he saw the star around 5:45am.

''It was that bloody spectacular I had to stop and watch it.''

He said the star had completely lit up the dark moonless sky and surrounding countryside.

''It was early and still dark and the only reason I noticed it was because all of a sudden I could see where I was going and I thought, 'hang on, it's just got light really quickly' and looked up and there it was.''

He described the shooting star as a massive 'fireball' with a long tail and said it seemed to travel from the north east to south west before disappearing into cloud over the ranges.

''It was just frickin' huge. For a while I thought it might crash into the ranges.''

The star almost passed right above his head, and was completely silent, he said.

''It was the best thing I've ever seen, and the most frightening.''

Stunned, his mind ran to the possibilities of what it could mean.

''I did think for a second, ''are we about to be invaded by aliens?'''

The star also left a vapour trail which hung in the sky for at least half an hour, he said.

Charlotte -- Some folks in North Carolina were lucky enough to have partially clear skies last night to see a large fireball or meteorite.

More than 200 people from Indiana to Ohio southward toward North Carolina reported seeing the large fireball. Most of the sightings came in just before midnight and folks reported the it was traveling from south to north across the sky. The meteorite was described as bright white with some red. There were no reports of sounds as it passed by the area.

People were stunned to see bright, flashing lights in the sky above Exeter. Several residents reported seeing what appeared to be a meteor on Monday evening. They described a "white ball" moving quickly above the city.

Trevor Sharp, from Exwick, said he saw the meteor just after dusk. He said: "We were putting our chickens away. It was low down near the horizon, pretty much east of Exwick, travelling south towards the north.

"It suddenly appeared a classic comet shape, a white ball with perhaps yellow eges and a bright white cone tail out the back. The person I was with saw it too. It was only there for a second. I never expected to see such a sight from my garden."

The object was spotted right across Devon.

Billy Dymond saw it from North Devon. He said: "We watched if for around three to four seconds, a large white ball turning green, not just going across but falling downwards towards earth at an incredible speed."

Federal crash investigators revealed Wednesday that the pilot flying Asiana Airlines Flight 214 told them that he was temporarily blinded by a bright light when 500 feet above the ground.

Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it wasn't clear what could have caused the problem. Asked specifically whether it could have been a laser pointed from the ground, Hersman said she couldn't say what caused it.

"We need to understand exactly what that is," Hersman said. "It was a temporary issue."

Her comments came during a daily press briefing on the Saturday crash of Asiana Flight 214 that left two dead and 168 others injured.

Federal crash investigators previously said that pilots recognized they were too low and not lined up precisely with the runway while still 500 feet from the ground. At 500 feet, pilots recognized that they were low as the Boeing 777 was going 134 knots and was 34 seconds from impact. They continued to make adjustments until hitting the seawall at the end of the runway at San Francisco International Airport.

Evacuation of the plane didn't begin immediately. Airlines must certify that they can evacuate fully loaded planes within 90 seconds. But in this case, a pilot told flight attendants not to begin the evacuation immediately when the plane came to rest.

But after about 90 seconds, a flight attendant near the second door reported seeing fire outside a window in the middle of the plane. He relayed that information to the cockpit and the evacuation began.

An airborne geophysical survey mapping mineral resources in the Midwest has confirmed that a 470-million-year-old impact crater nearly five times the size of Barringer (Meteor) Crater in Arizona lies buried several hundred meters beneath the town of Decorah, Iowa.

The crater's existence was first hypothesized in 2008 when geologists examining cuttings from water wells drilled near the town were surprised to find evidence of a previously unknown shale deposit. When geologist Robert McKay from the Iowa Geological Survey investigated further, he found something even more surprising: The shale deposit was nearly a perfect circle, roughly 5.5 kilometers across. Further analysis of sub-shale breccias by Bevan French, a geologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, revealed shocked quartz - a telltale sign of an impact. Together, the evidence added up to an exciting possibility: the existence of a previously unknown impact crater in the Midwest.

The Lake Andes Military Operations Area is shown in the lower right portion of this map taken from a report on the website of the Department of Defense’s Environment, Safety and Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange.

Some Mitchell-area residents were in a state of bewilderment last Saturday night after hearing a loud boom.

Though definitive information is scant, the boom could have been from a jet flying at supersonic speeds through a little-known military operations area.

The boom was heard around 11 p.m. and spawned calls to law enforcement officials in Mitchell and Mount Vernon, who did not determine a cause for the noise.

The National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls reported rain that night, but not much thunder. A lightning strike would be heard as a boom nearby where it hit, but would sound like a rumble from farther away.

Davison County Chief Deputy Steve Harr heard dispatchers discuss calls they received about a big boom. He heard reports of people who heard it in Mitchell, Mount Vernon and five miles northwest of Mount Vernon.

"This was a first for me," Harr said.

The noise may have been a sonic boom created by a jet flying faster than the speed of sound. The speed of sound varies with altitude and temperature, but is about 770 mph. The sonic boom would travel with the aircraft. Because the speed of sound can constantly change, it is possible to unintentionally break it.

The jet may have been flying through the Lake Andes Military Operations Area, an airspace used by the military for simulated air combat and complex missions, and practice maneuvers. It is the only such military operations area in the state, other than a small portion of the Powder River military air space in Montana and Wyoming that juts into South Dakota's northwest corner.